REST COAST will demonstrate to what extent upscaled coastal restoration can provide a low-carbon adaptation, reducing risks and providing gains in biodiversity for vulnerable coastal ecosystems, such as wetlands or sea grass beds. By overcoming present technical, economic, governance and social barriers to restoration upscaling, REST COAST will develop the large-scale river-coast connectivity and increase the nearshore accommodation space for the resilient delivery of coastal ecosystem services (ESS). The selected ESS (risk reduction, environmental quality and fish provisioning) touch urgent coastal problems such as the erosion/flooding during recent storms or the accelerating coastal habitat degradation that seriously affects fisheries and aquaculture. By enhancing these ESS under present and future climates at 9 Pilots that represent the main EU regional seas (Baltic, Black, North, Atlantic and Mediterranean) we shall increase the commitment of citizens, stakeholders and policy makers for a long-term maintenance of restoration. Such commitment will go together with a transformation of governance and financial structures, supported by evidence-based results on restoration benefits for the welfare of coastal societies and assets. This transformation will build upon the results from hands-on restoration at the Pilots, steered by the multidisciplinary project advances. Combining new techniques, risk assessments, innovative financial/governance arrangements and homogeneous metrics for ESS and biodiversity, REST-COAST will develop a systemic approach to coastal restoration based on a scalable coastal adaptation plan. The plan will underpin a transformative change in governance and policies, proving the importance of the coastal dimension in the EU Green Deal for adaptation/mitigation under climate change. The proposed adaptation will facilitate replicating large scale restoration and introducing coastal ESS into national and international policies.

The main objective of the MyOcean Follow On project will be to operate a rigorous, robust and sustainable Ocean Monitoring and Forecasting component of the pre-operational Copernicus Marine Service delivering ocean physical state and ecosystem information to intermediate and downstream users in the areas of marine safety, marine resources, marine and coastal environment and weather, climate and seasonal forecasting. This is highly consistent with the objective of the HORIZON 2020 Work Programme 2014-2015 establishing the need for interim continuity of the pre-operational services developed by MyOcean 2 before the fully operational services of Copernicus. The project proposes to sustain the current pre-operational marine activities until March 2015 in order to avoid any interruption in the critical handover phase between pre-operational and fully operational services. In effect, any significant interruption in these services could potentially jeopardize several important high-level policy objectives and undermine other related scientific activities. In the period from October 2014 to March 2015, MyOcean-FO will ensure a controlled continuation and extension of the services already implemented in MyOcean and MyOcean2 FP7 projects that have advanced the pre-operational marine service capabilities. To enable the move to full operations, MyOcean-FO is targeting the prototype operations, and developing the management and coordination to continue the provision of Copernicus Marine service products and the link with independent R&D activities. MyOcean-FO will produce and deliver services based upon the common-denominator ocean state variables that are required to help meet the needs for information for environmental and civil security policy making, assessment and implementation. MyOcean-FO is also expected to have a significant impact on the emergence of a technically robust and sustainable Copernicus Service infrastructure in Europe.